Vicki Delany Interview

Next up - Vicki Delany

How many books have you published? (For a look at all those books, click here)

Twenty-Three so far.  I write in many different crime sub-genres. Modern gothic style standalone thrillers (More than Sorrow), The Constable Molly Smith police procedurals (Unreasonable Doubt), the Klondike Gold Rush series (Gold Web) novellas for adult literacy and reluctant readers, and now cozies: The Lighthouse Library series, the Year Round Christmas books, and the forthcoming Sherlock Holmes Bookshop mysteries.  My twenty-fourth published book will be out on November 1^st. It’s We Wish You A Murderous Christmas, the second in the Year Round Christmas series for Penguin, and in March it’s time for Elementary She Read the first Sherlock Holmes Bookstore book.

Under what names do you publish?

Eva Gates writes the Lighthouse Library series, set in a library in a Lighthouse on the Outer Banks of North Carolina, but all my other books are published under my own name of Vicki Delany

Do you plot the entire book first, then write or plot as you go?

In my early years I was very much a “Pantser” - writing by the seat of my pants as I went. But when I started writing for Penguin and now Crooked Lane they require an outline, and I found that I much prefer doing it that way.  Writing a comprehensive outline gets the hard stuff out of the way.  Once I’ve written the outline for the publisher, I pretty much stick closely to it, although there are always opportunities to deviate.

How do you keep continuity on backstory? For example I read a book recently where the lead character said she had three brothers, several books later, she was an only child.

Good question.  I am very very sloppy.  I try to keep a series “bible”: a computer file containing information about the characters and the setting, but I stop adding to it. And then I’m in a fluster trying to remember if the character has blue eyes or brown eyes and stuff like that. I feel sorry for the author of the book you are referring to, but I know exactly from where s/he is coming.

Who is your favorite author?

So hard to pin one down. I love the traditional British-style police procedurals as written by Tana French, Ian Rankin, Peter Robinson, Susan Hill. I devour modern Gothic style, like Kate Morton or Simone St. James.  I am the past president of the Crime Writers of Canada, and that has given me the opportunity to discover so many great Canadian crime writers.

Do you write with pen and paper or a computer?

A computer. Always a computer. I’d be lost without it (them?). I have a laptop totally dedicated to writing and writing my books only. I don’t even do blog posts on it. I find that that’s the only way I can focus on writing, and stay away from Facebook and email and all the rest of the distractions. 

Editor's note: See Lighthouse Library Hosts Murder